Never Say Never

I had thought I would be coming to this post with a ghost story, but I postponed that because I need to talk about something really neat.

Some months ago, I released a sequel to my novel Saving Jake as a download on Smashwords. I like to think people noticed, although I doubt it. I know that I don't tend to peruse that site myself very much. But then something unusual happened.

Saving Jake was published by New Leaf books back in 2002. Good grief, it has been a while! At any event, shortly after that I started a sequel to it because I missed working with Mr. Holdridge and Mr. Corts, and I wasn't working on anything new yet (Haunted had yet to cross my mind). I stopped working on the sequel after getting about a third of the way through it, after making the acquaintance of Cassie Valentine and Michael Penfield. And they became my new friends.

But Jake and Corts were always in my head. They live in the same neighborhood, after all: right around Bridgeton Park Cemetery. So after releasing Drawing Vengeance late last summer, I took out the partially-written sequel and decided to finish it. Now, since Jake is on contract with New Leaf, I know I couldn't release Missing Persons on my own for profit, so I asked my buddy Donnie Light to format it and put it up on Smashwords for me. That happened in November, 2015.

Fast forward to early 2016. I met up with my editor from New Leaf after she had asked me how sales were for Missing Persons. I told her it was a free download at the moment, and that was fine, but we had a dinner meeting and she offered to read it. About two weeks later she told me she had finished it and wanted to publish it as an e-book only since Missing Persons is shorter than a full-length novel.

I was flabbergasted. I had told myself -and probably you, as well- ad nauseum that I would never traditionally publish again, not after launching the Bridgeton Park Cemetery series on Amazon myself. HOWEVER, my editor is a lovely woman and if she is willing to give my little sequel a shot, who am I to say 'no'?

So here is the announcement: going back completely on my proclamation to be an indie author first, last, and always, I want to tell all of you that Missing Persons will soon be available as an Amazon exclusive!!!! I will go on FaceBook and Twitter and my author page at Amazon to announce when it is available, which should be pretty soon. Hopefully, this week, if the planets align. The cover art (see above) is gorgeous as always because Carmen Elliott always does gorgeous work. 

There is a big disclaimer that I do want to add: SPOILER ALERT!!! Please, please, please do not read this story if you have not yet read Saving Jake. To do so would ruin the emotional investment in the first book as well as blunt the last message at the end. So please don't do it.

That said, I hope that those of you who made friends with both Jake and Corts will enjoy reading a follow-up story. I had fun writing it - I hope you have as much fun reading it!